Emerging Threat

House Republicans have opened an investigation into alleged hospice fraud in California, citing a CBS News investigation that found widespread warning signs among hospice operators in Los Angeles County and raising concerns about potentially tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer losses.

The new leader of Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation cartel is an American citizen, a distinction that could complicate efforts by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies to target him even as Washington and Mexico deepen cooperation against drug traffickers.

Weapons traffickers supplying Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel have sharply increased shipments from the United States, with demand fueled by cartel warfare and financed through a growing cross-border smuggling business that now moves hundreds of firearms at a time.

A UK parliamentary committee warned on Wednesday that weaknesses in Britain’s political finance regime leave it vulnerable to illicit foreign funds, and said enforcement remains too fragmented and underpowered to deter abuse.

Serious and organized crime became more diverse and more harmful in 2025, with drugs, organized immigration crime, and illicit finance all worsening, according to a new report by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA). 

Major Australian banks are working with the country’s financial-crimes watchdog to assess the scale of an alleged mortgage fraud scheme that may extend well beyond an earlier A$1 billion estimate.

Global financial fraud cost an estimated $442 billion in 2025 and is set to worsen over the next three to five years as artificial intelligence lowers barriers for criminals and scam-center operations spread far beyond Asia, according to INTERPOL’s latest global threat assessment. 

North Korean IT operatives are increasingly using artificial intelligence tools to pose as remote workers, win jobs, and draw salaries from European companies, the Financial Times reported, citing cyber security experts who said the threat is spreading beyond the United States.

Cybercrime victims are increasingly being targeted a second time by fraudsters posing as lawyers, law enforcement officials, and recovery specialists who falsely promise they can retrieve stolen funds.

Fraud in the UK reached a record level in 2025, with 444,993 cases filed to the National Fraud Database, according to Cifas’s latest Fraudscape 2026 report.